


Follow Through

by javasleuth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Allusions to end of Nationals arc but no major spoilers, First-years as Second-years, M/M, This is soft but somebody please get Yamaguchi on anti-anxiety meds, We are all still grappling with the self-care lessons of the end of Nationals arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29695815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/javasleuth/pseuds/javasleuth
Summary: Yamaguchi Tadashi has problems. Problems like figuring out how to prove his worth as a starting member of the Karasuno VBC lineup, or adjusting to his new position as a wing spiker, or managing two-a-days after a brutal case of insomnia. Problems with blonde hair and glasses who mess him up in a million little ways every day without meaning to.But he’s also got a brand new problem, a very unexpected problem, a problem he has absolutely no idea what to do with, and that’s the problem of Kageyama’s smile.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Kageyama Tobio/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Nishinoya Yuu & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Yachi Hitoka & Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

So here was the problem.

Well,  _ a  _ problem, anyway. 

The problem— _ a _ problem—was that Yamaguchi was positive—certain, really, not to put too fine a point on it—that Kageyama was clearly, obviously, 100%, definitely, for sure, like... _ into  _ Hinata. Not that  _ that  _ was a problem, or anything. It wasn’t! Love is love and the heart wants what it wants and besides Yamaguchi was the last person out of  _ anybody  _ who could say  _ anything  _ about embarrassing crushes given that he himself was a half-decade deep into a chronic stomachache named Tsukishima Kei. And even that wasn’t really, necessarily a problem, depending on who you asked, which he would never do because good god could you imagine.

No, the problem— _ a _ problem—was that this morning at practice, Ennoshita had set them all out to go for a run, and Yamaguchi had stayed toward the middle because that was where he liked to be, and at the top of the hill he was pretty much alone for a minute, except that Kageyama was there too. Which wasn’t super weird because he was taking it easy after he rolled his ankle at All-Japan Youth Camp a few weeks ago, so pacing Hinata wasn’t a priority right now. And that was all well and good on its own, but the sunrise was  _ just  _ cresting up over the horizon, and it was beautiful, and Kageyama was taking a moment to look out over it, and the backsplash of gold and pink and grey as it spilled over  _ him  _ was beautiful, and then he noticed as Yamaguchi rounded the turn and slowed his pace and he—and this part actually  _ was  _ weird—he smiled. Just a little! But he did. And  _ he  _ was beautiful.

So, like, that was a problem. 

But it still wasn’t  _ the  _ problem.  _ The  _ problem was that it was half past midnight, and Yamaguchi was wide awake because he couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

_ The  _ problem was that he had practice again tomorrow morning, and if he didn’t get to bed soon there would hardly be a point in sleeping at all, and if he reached that point then he might as well just un-enroll from Karasuno High School because there was no way anything else was going to overtake his thoughts before then, it was just going to be the same perplexing, inexplicable, unfathomable, inexorable smile all lit up in gold and pink and grey and he was going to be so brain poisoned that when he saw Kageyama in the morning all he would be able to do was fumble over his words and stumble over his feet and then maybe he would roll his  _ own  _ ankle on the court and then he would have to step off from drills and then the only person who would know what to do would be Kageyama because he just got his taken care of by the official Japan V-League athletic trainer two weeks ago and probably he would need to tape it up or something and  _ that  _ would mean holding Yamaguchi steady with his strong, nationally-ranked hands and  _ then  _ what was Yamaguchi supposed to do? Die?

It was a problem!

He buried his face in his pillow and groaned as loudly as he could manage without defeating the purpose of the pillow, then rolled over and checked his phone. 1 am. His alarm was going to go off in 4 hours. Four hours of sleep sounded terrible. But 4 hours of thinking about a guy he definitely didn’t have an actual crush on, who super definitely didn’t have a crush on  _ him, _ would be so much worse. He choked on a suffocating mouthful of irony for a moment and then swallowed it as he found himself  _ trying  _ to think of Tsukki. Tsukki at training camp. Tsukki on their morning walks to school. Tsukki growing into broad shoulders and toned biceps. Tsukki giving his six hundred mixed signals every day, Tsukki going to Tokyo last week to sit in on a college practice with Kuroo’s team, Tsukki being the same person now that he always was, that he always would be, which was  _ confusing  _ and  _ infuriating  _ and  _ stressful  _ and—and—and—

_ Fuck. _

-*-

He got... _ some  _ sleep. But it definitely wasn’t enough. And it definitely wasn’t worth the fact that he woke up clumsily fumbling for his phone, which was still going on noisily, and apparently had been for many minutes because there was a text on it from Tsukishima that said  _ “Where are you? We’ll be late” _ that was time stamped two minutes ago which was five minutes after he was supposed to be out the door and which was seven minutes before he was tugging on his shoes on his front porch step, ignoring the impatient tapping of Tsukki’s fingers as he sent off a text.

“Sorry, Tsukki,” he mumbled blearily, and tried to mean it.

“You look terrible,” Tsukki replied. Yamaguchi did the immediate habitual work of charitably interpreting it as something stilted but concerned, a trick he almost forgot he played on himself most of the time. 

“Insomnia,” he yawned, pulling himself up and stretching his back out til it cracked. “Lezgo.”

And they did. In silence, for a few moments. Mostly. Except for Tsukishima’s  _ tap-tapping  _ on his phone. Yamaguchi couldn’t tell if it grated on his nerves because nerves were a particularly easy thing to grate upon when they were sleep-deprived, or if it was more owing to the fact that he had known for years—in fact would have sworn in a court of law, if it were demanded of him, not that he had spent a lot of time thinking about it, recently—that Tsukishima hated texting.

“Tell Kuroo I said good morning.” Yamaguchi was half-joking. He wasn’t proud of the other half.

Tsukki cast him a sidelong glance, something sort of bemused but otherwise unreadable, and chuckled softly.

“I won’t,” he responded lightly. “Because I’m not texting Kuroo.”

“Oh.” Yamaguchi felt kind of silly. Not silly as in ha ha I’m so giddy just to be here walking next to you, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you talking, which was certainly a way he had felt silly around Tsukishima in the past. Silly as in embarrassed. Which was...also a way he spent a lot of time feeling silly around Tsukki.

“I’m texting Kageyama.”

Yamaguchi’s brain sparked and fizzed unhelpfully.

“O-oh?” It came out awkward and sort of strangled, the same way any word might sound if you were trying way too hard to make it sound normal.

“Mm.”

Silence again, but agonizing this time. He had thought Kageyama hated texting too. Maybe he didn’t actually know anything. Maybe he was wrong about most known facts of the universe. Maybe they were just talking about homework. Maybe they were talking about practice. Maybe they were talking about—

“We’re talking about you.”

“Bwa?” Yamaguchi snapped his head around to look, bewildered, at Tsukki, who laughed out loud in surprise at his expression. Yamaguchi felt his face go bright red and covered it up with both of his hands. “Tsukkiiiiiii. Don’t be mean!”

“Sorry,” Tsukki cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose, averting his gaze from the hapless Yamaguchi as he wrestled down the dying laughter. “Maybe you should skip practice today.”

“Skip practice? Why? What did Kageyama say?”

“What? Yamaguchi, I meant you should skip practice because you’re a complete mess this morning. You unravel when you don’t get enough sleep.”

“I’m not  _ unraveling _ ! You just—you just can’t tell me you were talking about me behind my back and then not tell me what it was about!”

Tsukki regarded him with a slight frown, and that near-unnoticeable crease in his forehead that meant he was doing that thing he did where he cracked you open and read you like a book. Yamaguchi was, as always, terrified of what he’d find there. He knew it wasn’t actual mind-reading, not really, not anything close, but still every time it happened he found himself trying to still his thoughts and focus on some random object nearby. Just in case. Today it was the pebble underneath his sneaker.

“I  _ very courteously  _ texted Kageyama to let someone know we were going to be late for practice, and he asked why. I told him I was still waiting for you, and he—being Kageyama—asked why. Then I explained that you hadn’t slept well, and he demanded to know if you like coffee. And then I left him on read to have this conversation. Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”

“I’m  _ fine, _ ” he insisted, but he didn’t really feel very fine at all. He felt very overwhelmed and a hundred times more confused and slightly giddy and extremely unraveled. He buried his face in the collar of his jacket and his hands deep in his pockets and quickened his pace. “Come on. I don’t wanna make you late.”

“Alright, Yamaguchi.”

“I’m just tired, is all.”

“Okay, Yamaguchi.”

“....and I do like coffee.”

“I know, Yamaguchi.”

-*-

He hadn’t realized he was half-falling asleep until he was startled awake by the sound next to him—crinkling paper and the thud of wood under aluminum and the impatient squeak of rubber soles.

“Yamaguchi-kun.”

Yamaguchi jumped a little and looked up at Kageyama, who was towering well over where he sat, in the middle of an unfinished stretch and with one volleyball shoe on. There was a little paper bag at his feet, the one Kageyama had evidently just placed there, and which he was now looking pointedly away from. Yamaguchi was seized with helplessness and nerves and confusion. Not an unfamiliar mix of emotions, necessarily, but wholly original in their cause this morning.

“Uhh. G-good morning, Kageyama...kun?”

“Tsukishima said you didn’t sleep well.”

“That’s, um. Right.” His heart was thudding awkwardly in his chest, a feeling of nervousness intensified by the fact that he had no clue where to look. Craning his neck up to look at Kageyama’s face was uncomfortable and nerve-wracking, but staring at eye level was...not really an option. He didn’t want to start rustling around in the bag without invitation, it seemed rude. He settled for looking sort of generally up and ahead while he finished tugging on his shoes, letting his focus land on the wall seam he used sometimes as a reset point for jump float serves. It was sort of soothing—if he pretended he was just doing the most stressful single act in the sport of volleyball, rather than what he was actually doing which was talking to a tall and very intimidating boy who had just done something nice for him.

“I brought you coffee,” Kageyama explained, pointing at the bag. “But caffeine dehydrates you, so there’s a water bottle too. And a meal bar, so you don’t skip breakfast.”

Yamaguchi forgot all about his reset point and just stared. Kageyama sort of shifted his weight and crossed his arms in a way that might have been nerves, if nerves were a thing that Kageyama even had, which it had seemed to Yanaguchi he didn’t. 

“It’s from Shimada Mart,” he explained. “I just asked which one you liked.”

“You…” Yamaguchi choked up, a little, picking up the bag if for no other reason than to give his hands something to do. “You went to Shimada Mart just to get me breakfast?” He gingerly unfolded the crease of the bag, peering inside. Sure enough, there was a canned coffee, and a bottle of water, and one of the protein bars from the rack at the front with the blue and orange wrapper. Yamaguchi didn’t actually know if he liked them or not, but they were the kind he grabbed every time he finished working out with Shimada-san because it was the one he had gotten the very first time, or actually the time before it, when he was too nervous to actually tell the man why he was really there and just picked the first thing he saw that he had enough pocket change for. Which made them kind of special, in a weird way that he now felt deeply loyal to, and which made the gesture feel so unexpectedly warm coming from someone else. Coming from, of all people, Kageyama.

“Yeah.”

Yamaguchi felt tears prickling at his eyes and scrubbed them away with the back of his arm. He was embarrassingly quick to cry under any circumstances, but short a full night’s sleep it took less than nothing to start waterfalls. The  _ last  _ thing he needed right now was to start sobbing in front of Kageyama. Especially after a gesture like this, a gesture Yamaguchi wanted very powerfully to believe was special for reasons he was still trying not to think about.

“Th-thank you, Kageyama. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

Kageyama’s typical flat expression fell ever so slightly as his brow furrowed. Stony, but quizzical. He got like that, sometimes, when he wasn’t connecting the way he expected—on or off the court. Yamaguchi wondered sort of weirdly what else he had memorized about the setter without meaning to. It was a delicate line of self-inquiry he wasn’t sure if he should follow through on.

“You can’t play if you don’t take care of yourself first.”

The fragile feeling in Yamaguchi’s chest cracked a little under the weight of realization.  _ Oh. _

“Right.” He swallowed, hard, and beamed up at Kageyama with the smile he kept polished for interactions like this. “Well, thank you! I’ll be on the court in no time, I promise!”

Kageyama brightened just a little and nodded stiffly before turning to go without another word, leaving Yamaguchi with a bitter taste that wasn’t coffee and a meal bar he started to dutifully unwrap more out of obligation than appetite.

“Morning, Tadashi,” Yachi chirped from

behind him. She let her messenger bag slip to the ground as she took a seat on the gym floor next to him with her court shoes in hand, smiling sunnily before nodding in Kageyama’s direction. “What was that all about?”

“Hinata.” It was an admittedly unfair answer made worse by the fact that it was difficult to be appropriately sulky around a mouthful of mediocre protein.

“Hinata?” Yachi cocked her head quizzically, trying in vain to follow the invisible thread of the conversation. “Is he okay?”

“S’fine.” He sighed, then backtracked. “Kageyama’s just still on edge about the Nationals thing, I guess. He found out I didn’t sleep well last night and he brought me breakfast so I could play without passing out.”

Yachi frowned a little and peered over his shoulder into the bag.

“...And you think that was about Hinata?”

“Well not, like, about him, but. You know.  _ About  _ him.”

The little humming sound Yachi made could have meant anything—it was a nervous habit, and she was never not nervous—but Yamaguchi was pretty sure in this case it meant something like disbelief. But, you know, politely, so it was really closer to an invitation. And he didn’t feel like talking about it, but he had also never been so desperate to talk to anyone about anything, and when it came to talking to  _ people  _ about  _ things  _ the person was always Yachi. Yamaguchi hung his head between his knees for a second with a defeated, strangled noise halfway between surrender and distress before pulling his phone out of his pocket and tapping it, which was their signal for these things.

A few seconds later it buzzed under his fingertips and he finally pulled his head up again to look.

> _ Are you ok? Did Tsukki do something this morning? _

_ >> aaaaaa i’m fine!! i’m fine except i’m not fine but it isn’t tsukki this time it’s literally so dumb yacchan and i think i have to scream _

Yachi frowned a little before tapping out another response.

> _ Not fine because no sleep? Or no sleep because not fine? _

_ >> booooooth????  _

From the other side of the gym Ennoshita flagged his attention and called over.

“Hey, Yamaguchi! You good to play?”

Yamaguchi grinned and flashed two thumbs up as he hopped to his feet.

“You bet, Captain!” The sudden vertigo made him feel sick. When had he gotten so comfortable with lying? He looked meaningfully at Yachi and tapped his pocket before jogging out to center court for stretches.

Unsurprisingly, he felt like garbage, and even less surprisingly, he played like garbage. Three jump floaters in a row went straight to the middle of the net before Ennoshita placed a hand on his shoulder and suggested he stick to regular float serves this morning.

“Save something for afternoon practice,” he said with a friendly smile, which was an extremely generous way of translating “please don’t hit Tanaka in the back of the head again.”

Every time he rotated out, he hurriedly texted back and forth with Yachi, whose clipboard did a much better job of hiding it than his pockets—but if Ennoshita noticed  _ that _ , he at least had decided not to comment. 

> _ Is it a volleyball thing or a person thing? _

_ >> uhhh volleyball person thinf  _

_ > But not Tsukki?? _

_ >> ahahaha nope, but it’s like the tsukki thing :))) i hate it here _

_ > omg _

_ >> haha yeah _

_ > KAGEYAMA?? _

_ >> ASHDJFK DONT LOOK OVER HERE _

_ > LOOKING OVER THERE IS MY JOB TADASHI _

“Yamaguchi.”

“Yeah?” His voice sort of squeaked out of his throat before he could even finish looking up to see who he was actually talking to. It was Tsukishima, of course, which he should have already known, if there was one sound on this  _ Earth _ he would have bet on himself knowing it was the sound of his name in Tsukishima’s mouth, how could he possibly be so frazzled that—

“Practice is over.”

“Huh?” He stared blankly.

“Practice is over,” Tsukki repeated, but it wasn’t as completely exasperated as it might have been. Which was nice. “Ennoshita called it two minutes ago. We need to get to class. Come on.” He handed Yamaguchi the gym bag he must have already retrieved from the side of the court and jerked his head toward the club room.

Yamaguchi opened his mouth to say something in response, something thanking him for going to the trouble to grab the gym bag, or maybe more accurately to just sort of let words fall out, but he was cut off by the orange blur of Hinata bounding past them towards the door.

“Hey,  _ Bakayama,  _ wait up! You’re being  _ so weird  _ this morning!”

“How does he even tell?” Tsukki remarked with a dry laugh. “It’s not like his Highness is ever—“

But Yamaguchi wasn’t listening. Because it  _ was  _ weird that he left without Hinata. And it was weird that he stormed out of the club room just as he and Tsukki were walking in. And it was really weird, so weird Yamaguchi had to shove his phone back in his pocket and not think about it for the rest of the day, when Kageyama texted him halfway through first block and it just said 

_ > I said the wrong thing earlier. Sorry. _

-*-

They weren’t  _ avoiding  _ each other, exactly. 

For one thing, that would have implied that Kageyama was actively thinking about it, that he even  _ had  _ a reason to be consciously moving around Yamaguchi. And that just wasn’t fathomable, to be honest. There was no way. Unless he was mad about practice earlier—it was only morning drills, but Yamaguchi was a starter now, and still wasn’t a very good wing spiker yet even on the best days, which today definitely wasn’t. Apparently Kageyama used to do that sometimes—ignore people if they weren’t pulling their weight on the court. At least that was what the Seijoh guys said, the ones who had gone to middle school with him. It wasn’t that Yamaguchi really made a habit of trusting Seijoh guys, not more than he trusted anyone off the street, which, okay, was admittedly a lot, but it was an easy rumor to believe as far as rumors went! He’d seen the way things had gone after the first Japan Youth Camp. And before that, too.

Sure, Kageyama had changed a lot since their first probationary match, what felt like a hundred years ago. He’d grown increasingly more cooperative and communicative with the other players on the team. But the other players on the team were all really  _ good _ . And Yamaguchi wasn’t. Not like them, anyway. So if there were anybody who was  _ going  _ to get the silent setter treatment, it was definitely going to be him.

But again, they weren’t avoiding each other. Because again, in order for people to be avoiding each other, they had to be  _ thinking  _ about each other, and they weren’t. Kageyama wasn’t. Yamaguchi definitely was. 

But Yamaguchi also had a million other things to think about, and he wasn’t handling any of them particularly well.

“Hey, Yamaguchi-kun.” 

“Ah?” Yamaguchi’s arms were still smarting from the botched receive when Noya caught it deftly in midair and turned to face him.

“You’re locking your knees up again. Relax.”

“Agh, sorry, Noya-san.” He shook his head to clear it of the fog that had settled in sometime around midnight and never left. Noya just laughed and clapped him hard on the back.

“Don’t sweat it! Court looks different in the back row. Stop trying to be a middle blocker and just listen to your instincts, ‘kay?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“You’re worse than Asahi. What are you apologizing to me for? I could go all day.” He flashed a toothy grin and a wink. “But something tells me you shouldn’t try to, so do yourself a favor and loosen up, alright?”

“Yeah.”

The look on Nishinoya’s face was somewhere between not believing and not asking anyway, and for a moment Yamaguchi thought maybe he would be free from any unwelcome lines of questioning, and that he could just make it through the rest of this lunch break and then coast through his afternoon classes until practice, but fortune had stopped smiling on him as soon as Nishinoya started.

“So hey, here’s a question for you, kouhai.” The libero’s expression wasn’t predatory in the slightest, but Yamaguchi still had the distinct impression of being watched by an entirely-too-canny observer. He tore his eyes away to focus solely on receiving the high, easy toss and tried his best to stay on his guard in more ways than one.

“Um, okay?”

“Why do you want to practice with me on your break? I mean, you know I don’t mind. Your noble upperclassman will set up receives for you every day if ya want. But you’re a wing spiker, dude.”

“Well, yeah,” Yamaguchi stumbled forward slightly to catch a short toss this time, making sure at the last minute to relax his knees as he moved with the receive. “I-I mean that’s why. I was a middle blocker all these years, I’m way behind on receiving. And you’re—umph—our best receiver.”

“Well I should hope so!” Noya laughed out loud, but didn’t miss a beat returning the toss. “But that’s what I’m saying. If you wanna practice  _ receives _ ...you need a server. And if you wanna practice spiking, Wing Spiker-san, you need a se—“

“I don’t, though, okay? I don’t want to practice spiking, and I want to work on my fundamentals before I waste anybody’s time with an hour of serving drills, so…”

“So then my real question,” Nishinoya interrupted, those wide unblinking eyes fixed directly on him, “is why are you avoiding Kageyama?”

“I’m  _ not.” _

-*-

Except he kind of was, and by halfway through afternoon practice it really was starting to seem like maybe Kageyama was avoiding him too, which was equal parts relieving and completely agonizing. Not to mention impossible.

“ _ Yamaguchi!”  _

Coach Ukai barked the name from the sidelines, ceasing his pacing to suddenly call a halt to the practice game with visible frustration writ large on his face.

“Y-yes Coach!”

“Receives go  _ where? _ ”

Yamaguchi cringed.

“To the setter, Coach.”

“Then send them to the setter!” 

He knew that. Of course he knew that. But it was easier said than done, it was enough to deal with just staying upright and gritting his teeth and bracing his arms and bending his knees and lifting his shoulders and planting his feet and arching his back and clearing his head, like that was the  _ bare minimum _ , and then to do all of that while also making an active decision about where it needed to go every single time? He was supposed to do all of that? That would have been a lot to ask even if he  _ wasn’t  _ looking anywhere except Kageyama. But he was, obviously, and  _ that  _ made it  _ impossible. _

“R-right Coach. Sorry, Coach.”

His face felt warm and his eyes felt wet and his whole body, every part of it, felt heavy and dull and completely untalented. He took a deep, shaky breath and allowed his gaze to flicker up to the wall, to find one of his reset points, and then he would feel his feet ground to the floor and the pressure of a dozen eyes would slide right off of him and his mind would clear up and then he could keep playing—

“Ukai-san.” Takeda’s voice was soft but stern, audible even from the sidelines.

“Yeah, Sensei, I get it. You can stop giving me that look. Yamaguchi,” Ukai called out again, but the edge of it was gentler this time. “You’re done for the day. Tanaka, you too. We’re not about to lose our ace to a shoulder injury. Take it easy and go do your cooldown stretches. Everyone else, let’s drill serves for the last 15 minutes. Then we’ll call it an early Friday, eh?”

“Thanks Coach!”

“You got it Coach!”

“Thank your Sensei,” Ukai growled, “and then make it up to him by taking  _ care  _ of yourselves this weekend for once!”

“Thank you, Sensei!”

Being pulled early from practice was equal parts sting and relief, made a little easier by the fact that Tanaka—who was by all accounts on fire today—was walking off too. Maybe that had been the point. Yamaguchi didn’t really care. He was too busy willing his body to stay standing until he could get to the wall and slide down into a seated stretch. He managed the short distance to the sidelines and dutifully moved through the familiar routine of stretches and folds to get his body back into some semblance of functionality, and then lost track of the minutes that followed while practice wound to an end and the team paid as much attention to Coach’s wrap up as it was possible to do on a Friday evening. He was only dimly aware of shrugging on his jacket and stifling a yawn before he was suddenly called back into reality.

“Let me walk you home.”

Yamaguchi was not proud of the sound he made as he startled, even less so of the face he must have been making as he turned to meet Kageyama’s eyes.

“Ah?? Sorry?”

“I said let me walk you—“

“Oh, jeez, Kageyama, you don’t have to do that, I live in the other direction and—“

“I know,” Kageyama stated simply. He looked gravely serious. It was actually kind of funny, except that he was still a bit flushed from practice and his hair was pushed back out of his eyes, gone just slick enough with sweat to stay in place, and there was a single glistening trail sort of tracing the edge of his jawline, and Yamaguchi was really, really gay. He laughed nervously anyway.

“You know where I live?” It was meant to sound playful, kind of bantery maybe, some of the other guys did that sort of thing and he was pretty sure some of them had gotten kissed about it, but it mostly just came out squeaky and awkward. He felt squeaky and awkward.

“You live near Tsukishima,” Kageyama replied sort of quizzically. He cocked his head to the side, those intense dark eyes of his gone a shade of confused.  _ Join the club _ , thought Yamaguchi. “At least, I thought so. He always walks with you after school, and I know where he lives. It’s about twenty minutes. We all watched game tapes over there last month—“

“Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, you’re right. But you don’t have to walk me home, Kageyama-kun, I promise I’ll make it in one piece, haha. Besides, I have Tsukki, and...and I’ve already been enough of a hassle today, and—“

“Who said that to you?” Kageyama’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Yamaguchi could have sworn they flickered for just a moment toward where Tsukki stood looking over Yachi’s shoulder at practice notes. 

“Bwa—? N-no, nobody said that! Nobody said anything, really,” Yamaguchi hurriedly clarified, then sort of laughed weakly. “Nobody would. They don’t have to. It’s okay, I know, but really, you already—I mean with breakfast, and—“

He ran out of words before he got to the end of his statement. Come to think of it, he wasn’t necessarily used to finishing most of them. Talking with Yachi was a breathless stumble of both of them tripping over each other’s sentences to helpfully supply dropped thoughts and errant asides. Hanging out with Hinata meant a lot of listening, actually, a lot of riding shotgun while the other boy fired off explosive half sentences and enormous gestures into the conversation, a lot of laughing along and shaking his head without really getting many of his own thoughts to completion. And Tsukki...well, talking to Tsukki was as much about not talking as it was about talking. Which was nice! He cherished the little silences that fell between them, he clung to the fact that he got to witness the quiet, contemplative moments no one else saw, the subtle smiles and sidelong glances and thoughts that didn’t quite make it to the surface….At least, he was pretty sure no one else saw them. He guessed he didn’t really know anymore. Everything had changed so much since middle school. All of it. 

Either way, talking with Kageyama was different from any of them. Kageyama said exactly what he meant. And then he waited for you to do the same. And that was just about the most terrifying thing Yamaguchi could think of.

“If someone thinks you’re a burden,” Kageyama said after a pause, startling Yamaguchi from his runaway thoughts. “They’ll tell you.”

The conviction in that simple statement made Tadashi’s heart ache for reasons that hadn’t caught up to him yet.

“But I didn’t say I have to walk you home,” the setter continued, then sort of halted awkwardly and averted his gaze with a little huff. “I just...want to, is all.” He hesitated for a second and then added, almost reluctantly, “Please?”

“Uh.” If Yamaguchi still  _ had  _ thoughts, they deserted him in that moment. Without meaning to, he glanced in Tsukki’s direction. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he didn’t find it—only the burning curiosity writ like panic across Yachi’s face. “Yeah! I mean, okay,” he stammered out with sudden conviction. The  _ least  _ he could do today—the  _ very least _ —was to make one decision for himself, right? And why shouldn’t he? It wasn’t like he had plans. It wasn’t like he had anything. It was Friday. He was just going to crash into bed whenever he got home. What difference did it make how he got there?

“Okay?” Kageyama looked pleasantly surprised, dangerously close to smiling, and Yamaguchi wondered if he had just accidentally signed his own death warrant.

“Yep! Ready when you are!” he managed. “Let’s go!”

He sort of thought—hoped?—thought—that maybe Tsukishima would stop them, or, barring that, Hinata. But either they were both preoccupied elsewhere or, as Yamaguchi was kind of beginning to suspect, he had drastically misread this entire situation and the people he had assumed to be involved in it. They were fully a minute out the door and nearly to the edge of campus before Yamaguchi felt his shoulders begin to relax, settled into the certainty that they weren’t going to be accused of some sort of betrayal. Which was stupid anyway, and he knew that, but it was still a pressing possibility in his brain up until the moment they were interrupted by Tanaka instead.

“ _ Oi!  _ Yamaguchi! Kageyama!”

Yamaguchi jumped a little, startled out of the conversation he was just steeling himself to begin as the ace jogged up behind them with a grinning Nishinoya and an exasperated Ennoshita in tow.

“Aaaa, hey Tanaka-san!” Yamaguchi managed. “W-what’s up?”

“You two weren’t sneaking off to trouble somewhere, were you?”

Nishinoya snorted audibly.

“Puh- _ leeze,  _ we should be so lucky! If we want either of these two to get into mischief we’ll have to start it ourselves!”

“Let’s not,” Ennoshita sighed. “The last thing I need is for you two to create more monsters.”

Tanaka and Noya cackled delightedly, but far from abandoning their apparent cause, Tanaka slung an arm around both Yamaguchi and Kageyama’s shoulders instead, flashing that sharky grin of his with signature enthusiasm.

“Say, how about helping your beloved seniors out, eh?”

“I am  _ not  _ buying you meat buns,” Ennoshita stated for what was clearly not the first time. “No matter how many team members you try to drag into this.”

“They’re our underclassmen, Ennoshitaaaa,” Nishinoya pleaded dramatically. “Don’t you want to make sure they’re eating properly?”

“Daichi-san always used to buy when  _ he  _ was captain,” Tanaka said. He affected what he must have thought was an innocent, possibly even charming expression and added “Especially when his vice captain asked nicely!”

Ennoshita maintained his cool composure but couldn’t quite keep a bemused grin from tugging at the corner of his mouth. Yamaguchi hid his own smile behind his hand, desperately trying not to get involved.

“This may come as a shock, Ryu,” Ennoshita sighed. “But I am not Daichi-san. And you are  _ absolutely  _ no Sugawara.”

“It’s not about us!” Nishinoya protested. He put on a stoic, noble expression and pointed dramatically at the second years. “Think of the children! You have to model good eating habits or they’ll never learn! Do you really want them to stagger home exhausted on an empty stomach?”

Ennoshita frowned and crossed his arms resolutely, but even Yamaguchi could see that it had been a futile exercise from the beginning. The captain rolled his eyes and pulled out his wallet to count bills and Yamaguchi flashed an apologetic smile to Kageyama as Tanaka and Nishinoya, crowing with victory, dragged the two of them in tow down the hill in pursuit of food, whatever might have been waiting in the solitude of a quiet walk home temporarily forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed my mind on how i wanted to format text messages. don't @ me

Of course it wasn’t  _ just  _ dropping into the Sakanoshita Mart for meat buns. It was the raucous, impossible-not-to-get-at-least-a-little-involved-in conversation that underscored their trek down the hill, and then it was bursting noisily into the store, and then it was scribbling out plays at the table while they waited for the next batch of buns to finish steaming, and then it was Noya deciding he wanted to double back for popsicles and Ennoshita reprimanding him when the libero insisted on treating everyone, demonstrably proving he obviously could have bought his own food to begin with, and then it was Coach Ukai giving them all an earful when he stepped in minutes later to start his shift only to find they hadn’t gone home yet, and then spotting the notes on the table and examining them over Ennoshita’s shoulder, and the growing sensation in the back of Yamaguchi’s mind that he might just end up falling asleep slouched against an endcap full of pocky boxes, still on his feet. 

Which might well have been the case, if not for Kageyama finally tearing himself away from playmaking to furrow his brow and frown a little in Yamaguchi’s direction before picking up his bag and moving toward the door.

“It’s getting late,” he said simply. “We should get going.”

“Mmyeah,” Yamaguchi agreed drowsily, startling to attention and following behind with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Thanks, Ennoshita-san. Bye, Coach.”

“Later, guys!”

“See ya!”

“Hey!” Coach Ukai stood up from the table and dusted off his hands as he called after the second-years. “Remember what I said! Take the weekend off. That’s an order, if it has to be!”

Kageyama scowled a little but nodded begrudgingly nonetheless. Yamaguchi wasn’t sure he had it in him to feel anything other than tired, but he was at least reasonably certain he would feel grateful the next morning. If he ever made it there. Kageyama’s feet seemed to find the route to his house more readily than his own, which he  _ did  _ actually manage to feel a little grateful for, and for a few minutes it seemed to Yamaguchi like maybe he had spent the entire day building up all sorts of tensions in his mind for absolutely no reason and that this entire bizarre saga was going to end with an awkward several kilometers of total silence serving as epilogue to a totally imagined crisis of chemistry and that the best he could hope for at this point was to make it home and collapse into bed and wake up having dreamt the whole thing. 

“I’m sorry,” Kageyama said after only a few minutes. “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”

He sounded sort of hesitant, sincere and subdued in a way he usually reserved for Sensei or Coach or last year’s upperclassmen. 

“Hm? What do you mean?” Yamaguchi attempted an effortless smile but his exhausted features only got him halfway there. “Home is home, no matter when I get there.  _ I’m  _ sorry you had to leave strategy talk early on my account.”

Kageyama shrugged. It was hard to read his face in the dying light of evening, but he didn’t look upset.

“It was nothing important. We need to work on what we’ve got already, and we can’t practice anything until Monday anyway.”

“Mm.” 

They walked along in silence for another moment until either courage or recklessness dragged a question to Yamaguchi’s lips.

“So what  _ did  _ you have in mind?”

“Hm?” Kageyama turned and looked at him with unguarded eyes. Yamaguchi felt that little shiver down his spine again. On the court, or bent over a playbook, it was so easy to forget that Kageyama was...well, human. He seemed like some other kind of creature entirely, who shared this world with the rest of them without really belonging to it in the same way as mortal men. But here, walking along the side streets as sunset and lamplight mingled in his wide, curious blue eyes, he was just...you know. Real. Yamaguchi was seized by the sudden desire to reach out and touch him. To take the other boy’s hand, to see if it felt solid and heavy against his palm. It seemed wrong, somehow, to even entertain the idea—what  _ was  _ Kageyama, after all, if not the sum of his genius fingertips? Was there any part of him more personal? More valuable? More sacred? Probably not. For Kageyama, holding hands was probably more intimate than, like, kissing. Now  _ there  _ was a thought.

Yamaguchi suddenly remembered Kageyama was waiting on him for clarification and felt his face go hot. 

“Oh! Er, I just. You said this afternoon wasn’t what you had in mind. So…” He averted his gaze and fiddled nervously with his hair, pulling the loose long pieces of it up into a half-ponytail at the nape of his neck. “What did you have in mind?”

Kageyama regarded him thoughtfully for a split second before averting his own gaze, adjusting the strap on his shoulder bag and tugging awkwardly at it as he spoke.

“It’s...probably nothing,” he stated. “Just something I’ve been thinking about.”

“Well now I wanna know,” Yamaguchi smiled a little. It was a tiny bit easier to be bold if he was helping someone else to get there. “What’s up?”

Kageyama huffed just a little and his glance flickered sideways to read Yamaguchi’s face out of his peripherals.

“I don’t know you well enough,” he stated simply. “I thought I could try to fix that, maybe.”

“What? What do you mean, you don’t know me well enough? Like, what sorts of stuff I like, or—?”

“No,” Kageyama frowned, frustrated. “Well, yeah. I don’t know. That’s part of it. Anything.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a starter now and I need to be a better setter for you.”

“ _ What? _ ” Yamaguchi nearly did a double take. “You’re like the best setter I’ve ever seen, you’re—“

“No, better for  _ you.”  _ Kageyama gestured vaguely with his hands, as if it would somehow help to reveal the inexplicable truth behind his words. “I don’t know how to set for  _ you _ . I’ve never had to do it in a real game before. I know how to make things work for the others, but...“ he trailed off, his eyes darting toward the ground as he sort of mumbled through the rest of his sentence. “...but you’re different.”

“So…” Yamaguchi wasn’t quite sure he got it, but whether that was sleep deprivation or his lack of fluency in volleyball prodigy dialect was anyone’s guess. He  _ did  _ kind of like the sound of different, though. At least the way Kageyama said it. “So you just...wanted to spend time with me? Y-you know. For volleyball reasons?”

Kageyama toyed with the strap on his shoulder bag again.

“Suga-san said if I got to know you off the court it would be easier.”

“You asked Sugawara for advice?” Yamaguchi bit back a little smile. He had never really taken time to consider the person Kageyama was without a volleyball in his hands. The people he might rely on, the lines of thinking he might pursue. It occurred to Yamaguchi that this was probably something most people didn’t know about Kageyama, which meant that being someone who  _ did _ made him someone special. Someone...close.  _ Different _ , he thought again, and again the feeling of that word struck him in a way he liked.

“I always ask Sugawara for advice,” Kageyama answered simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I dunno,” Yamaguchi shrugged. Maybe he was misreading the situation—maybe he should feel offended that it was only his inability to connect on the volleyball court that made him worthy of Kageyama’s time, maybe he shouldn’t be so desperate to assume he was being given some sort of special or unique insight into his teammate. Maybe he was inventing things to make himself feel better. Or worse. Like, maybe he was just tired and frustrated and lonely and mad at Tsukki and overwhelmed by volleyball and he wanted to have something else, anything else, going on in his life and this was the best he could come up with. Maybe—and sometimes he really felt like this must have been the case—he was just kind of hopeless and it only took an accidental case of completely inconsequential bare-minimum kindness to turn his brain inside out and shove it into his stomach. He considered the ebbing warmth of the sun fading from the blacktop beneath their feet, the familiar curve of the street as it brought them closer to the end of their route, and felt just brave enough to venture a little further anyway. “I think it’s sweet, though.”

Kageyama looked a bit perplexed, but that rare almost-smile colored his face again.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Yamaguchi grinned. He felt kind of breathless. If he _ was _ inventing the shimmery, lightheaded sort of joy that was blossoming in between them under the streetlights, he didn’t want to stop. “You know...I don’t really know you that well either. But I’m free tomorrow. If you want to hang out.”

For a moment Kageyama stared blankly at him. He looked taken aback. Anxiety rocketed up into Yamaguchi’s throat and he very nearly suffocated himself on a panicked retraction, but before he could get any of the words out Kageyama very abruptly stammered out a response.

“Yes!” he replied, suddenly and aggressively. “Yeah. Yes. I would like that. Can we?”

“Yeah,” Yamaguchi laughed, relief and euphoria flooding his chest. He felt certain his face must have been bright pink, but thankfully the sun had fully dipped below the horizon line in the time it took them to make it up to his street. “I’d, um, I’d like that too. We can’t play volleyball though, ‘cause Coach said, so we’ll have to like. Do something else.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“We could, uh.” Yamaguchi wracked his brain for options. What did people do when they hung out? What did people do on a date? What did people do when they were hanging out and they weren’t sure if it was a date or not but they kinda wanted it to be but like not in a way where if you suggested it somebody would immediately say ‘oh is this a date’ but still more than just a regular two classmates who know each other a little bit thing? The only person he’d ever actually dated was Yachi, and that didn’t really count because they only went on like two dates right after Nationals last year before they both came out to each other while they were walking home from graduation. Well okay then they technically kept dating for another month because it was a lot more fun once they weren’t both stressing out about feeling guilty all the time and it seemed kinda silly to give up having an excuse to hang out every day especially when neither of them was really ready to explain a breakup. But that still didn’t count for anything in terms of experience obviously because, to Yamaguchi’s knowledge, Kageyama was not a lesbian, so any and all of his very limited experience did not apply in this circumstance. “Go…to the movies?”

Kageyama seemed to consider this. His brow furrowed quizzically.

“How am I supposed to get to know you better if we’re busy watching a movie?”

“We can sit in the back,” Yamaguchi offered. “A-and we can talk through it, if we stay quiet.”

“Okay,” Kageyama relented warily. He crossed his arms and met Yamaguchi’s suddenly nervous gaze with a counterargument. “But then we should get food after, so we can talk for real.”

Yamaguchi’s head was swimming. A movie was arguably not a date, but  _ dinner  _ and a movie? That was  _ definitely  _ possibly a date in some circumstances. Did Kageyama know that? Maybe he didn’t know that. Maybe Yamaguchi should tell him. But if he  _ did  _ already know that would be a really weird thing to say. It was probably a weird thing to say either way. What was a not weird thing to say?

“Haha, yeah!” he said, weirdly. Oof. “Well, um. This is my street. I could, uh. I could maybe meet you at your place tomorrow? So you don’t have to come all the way out here again? Like a trade.” He tried to think of something cuter to end that sentence with, but all of the oxygen was forced out of his brain by the sudden magnitude of the yawn that erupted from his mouth. Kageyama placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him—it seemed like a reflexive, reactionary gesture, but it lingered there as he spoke. 

“You should sleep. I’ll text you my address in the morning.”

Yamaguchi nodded vigorously.

“Yep. Okay. Sleep. Oh, uh—Kageyama?”

“Hm?”

A million haphazard and ill-advised confessions stumbled through Yamaguchi’s mind, ranging from  _ you look nice  _ to  _ I think we should kiss  _ to  _ it’s literally impossible for me to form coherent thoughts when you are touching me _ , but he swallowed them down with a soft smile and managed to muddle through the one he meant.

“Thanks,” he said, making the noble effort not to give up and stare at his shoes. “For taking care of me today.” Before he could lose his nerve, he reached up and placed a hand over Kageyama’s on his shoulder, giving it just the barest ghost of a squeeze before he turned to go inside with a hurried “goodnight i’ll talk to you tomorrow get home safe!” He slammed the door behind himself loudly enough to cover the hammering of his heart and practically tripped over his own shoes as he slipped them off, haphazardly tucking them next to the door and then taking the stairs two at a time up to his bedroom. 

Yamaguchi threw himself down on his bed and peered out the window at the front yard where he could just barely make out Kageyama’s face as he considered his fingers for a moment, held them briefly to his own face, and then—where almost no one could see—smiled a wide, bright, and breathless smile. It was the last thing behind Yamaguchi’s eyelids as he finally fell asleep.

-*-

Midmorning sunlight was streaming broad and brilliant through Yamaguchi’s window when he came to. For a disorienting moment he felt certain he must have slept through an alarm again, a panicky sort of thought which was followed by the instant relief of realizing it was a Saturday, which lasted mere instants before being followed up by the much less relaxing realization that it was  _ Saturday,  _ as in  _ tomorrow,  _ as in the day where he had made plans of a nebulous and marvelously anxiety-inducing nature with Kageyama. He fumbled wildly for his phone, only to discover that it had died at some point during the night. With a melodramatic sigh—the kind of thing reserved exclusively for the sanctuary of his own bedroom; Yamaguchi would rather die than express inconvenience around another human being—he pulled himself upright and groped for a phone charger until he found the cable, plugged it in, and then resigned himself to brushing his teeth and washing his face without the convenient distraction of an idle screen. He had to do  _ something  _ other than work himself into a nervous frenzy while he stared at the charging indicator, after all.

He was partway through his little morning ritual when he heard the telltale chirp of belated texts and practically flung himself back into the bedroom, toothbrush still in hand. He stuck it into his mouth for lack of a more convenient option and unlocked his phone with anxious immediacy, already scanning the notifications. He had missed messages from Tsukki and Yachi alike, a facebook notification from Nishinoya tagging him and 3 others in some picture, and a handful of reminders—all of them ignored in favor of two texts at the top of his inbox:

FROM: KAGEYAMA #9

Oh. He should update that. 

> Good morning. Here is my address:

And...then his address. Well, it was certainly to the point. He was kind of relieved, actually—if Kageyama had written anything else he definitely would have cannibalized his own brain trying to overanalyze it. In fact he was already working overtime on that “good morning”, but he managed to summon the willpower to wrestle that down and respond:

TO: KAGEYAMA #9

>> hey good morning! ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ overslept haha

>> that’s not too far, you live pretty close to aoba johsai

>> ohhhh i guess that makes sense haha sorry

>> anyway!! what time should i come over?

Four messages? Really? He resisted the urge to faceplant into his pillow again and instead begrudgingly relinquished his phone to go finish brushing his teeth. He managed to talk himself into washing his face as well, and a brief shower after the realization he hadn’t taken one last night after practice, before the anxious pressure of awaiting a text without his phone in hand became absolutely untenable. He had some other notifications waiting as well but swiped them aside to get to his text messages—well, his text messages from a specific person.

FROM: KAGEYAMA #9

> Whenever you like. These are my only plans today

Yamaguchi frowned at his phone, his earlier decision not to overthink the matter abruptly forgotten. What did that mean?  _ Whenever you like?  _ Did that mean he could go over now? But it was only 10am. If he left now then they would have literally the entire day ahead of them. Was that what Kageyama wanted? Or was he just being polite? Maybe he really meant anytime this afternoon, and just assumed Yamaguchi wouldn’t be as eager as he was. He stared at his phone for several moments trying to decide how to move forward.

FROM: KAGEYAMA #9

> I’m making coffee right now. If you come over soon you can have some.

That was as good as an invitation was going to get, Yamaguchi figured, and practically fell over himself standing up and grabbing his bag.

>> mmm coffee (っ˘ڡ˘ς)

>> i’m on my way!!

He managed not to fall and die on the stairs, and hurriedly wished his mother a good morning as he ran past the kitchen, slipping his shoes on with record-breaking speed before throwing open the door and slamming face-first into 6 feet of blonde complications.

“Good morning,” Tsukishima greeted him calmly, one hand still raised to knock at the door that had swung open before he ever got the chance. His other arm was supporting the tangle of limbs and elevated heart rate that was Yamaguchi currently trying to regain his balance and dignity.

“Augh, sorry Tsukki,” he managed through watering eyes and a stinging nose. “I, uh, didn’t see you there.”

“Clearly.” There was a sort of bemused smile on Tsukki’s face, not unpleasant but far from earnest—still, he helped to straighten the bag on Yamaguchi’s shoulder and regarded him with something close to fondness. “I see you made it home alive last night after all.”

“Huh?” Yamaguchi felt like his thoughts had been knocked loose by the impact and had yet to really rattle back into place. “Yeah, why?”

“You didn’t answer your texts. I assumed you were fine, but…” Tsukki trailed off. Shrugged a little. “It was unlike you. I thought I would check.”

“Oh,” said Yamaguchi. Then, a moment later, as it clicked into place, “Oh! Oh, that’s why you came over?”

“Well it’s not exactly out of my way. But yes.”

“Aw, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi anticipated the little flip his stomach would do, but was surprised to find it was a fleeting, insubstantial thing that did little to distract from the electric weight of his phone in his hand. For a moment, that alone gave him a feeling of raw, awesome euphoria. For all of his repeated and habitual exposure of the past many, many years, he had yet to develop immunity to the presence of Tsukishima. To feel, even for an instant, what it was like to be somebody whose center of gravity wasn’t tall and rude and dismissive? It was intoxicating. It did, however, occur to him in the next instant that from a certain point of view he had just somehow managed to flip his polarity to a  _ different  _ tall, rude, dismissive cosmic body. And in the instant after  _ that,  _ Tsukki said:

“So where are you off to in such a hurry?”

And Yamaguchi’s orbit collapsed.

“Nowhere!” he lied immediately, his voice sliding up by an octave and a half.

Tsukki laughed, soft and perplexed.

“Okay,” he replied, unbothered. “Would you rather go somewhere instead? I need new court shoes.”

Yamaguchi laughed nervously.

“Haha what? You just got new court shoes last month. I mean, I thought...you did.” Hopefully it was a very cool and normal thing to know when somebody last bought shoes.

“Yes,” Tsukki sort of slanted his gaze curiously. “And my feet grew, and now I need new ones. Sometimes that’s how this works. Are you my mother?”

Yamaguchi bit his tongue and smiled weakly. Of all the days, he thought, for the universe to remind him that Tsukishima was changing, that Tsukishima was tall and getting taller, that Tsukishima  _ liked  _ volleyball,  _ prepared  _ for it, spent his  _ Saturdays  _ on it, that Tsukishima could sometimes be someone who would text you just to make sure you got home and check on you in the morning and invite you along for the day, and that Yamaguchi had spent years of his life tagging along under impossible conditions of indifference just on the sliver of hope that this specific kind of Saturday might come—

“Let’s go to the one in Seijoh,” he suggested, before he knew what he was doing. “The shoe store there. By—by the mall?”

“In Seijoh?” Tsukki considered it. “There’s a closer one just across the ward.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not the one in Seijoh,” Yamaguchi laughed with what he hoped was careless indifference. He felt utterly certain that Tsukki was going to read him, was going to give him That Look and then call him out, somehow, on this entire situation, but he put on a pleading smile and hoped against hope and instead—impossibly—Tsukki just paused, and then shrugged, and then pulled out his phone to plug in the address.

“Alright,” he said. “Seijoh it is.”

“Great!” Yamaguchi managed. “Great.” He cast a guilty sort of sidelong glance down at his own phone and tried to figure out how on Earth he was going to resolve this.

-*-

They were halfway to Aoba Johsai when Yamaguchi realized he hadn’t been listening.

“...Yamaguchi?”

“Huh? Oh. Sorry, Tsukki.”

Tsukki sighed, a bit resignedly, though Yamaguchi was stunned to find his seemingly pleasant mood still had yet to fade. 

“Not to belabor the point, but are you  _ positive _ you aren’t coming down with something? You’ve been acting odd since Thursday.”

“No! I mean, yes, I’m positive, but no,” Yamaguchi clarified. “I’m not coming down with something. Just...distracted, I guess. A lot on my mind.” A half-truth was something he could offer, he figured. He’d handed Tsukki a lot of half-truths over the years, and even though he had always sort of felt Tsukki had suspected this, the other boy had also never pushed back on them. 

“Mm.” For a moment it seemed Tsukishima was just going to drop it, but he cast a sidelong glance in Yamaguchi’s direction and, hesitating, added “...Well, whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll make it work for you.”

Yamaguchi was totally taken aback.

“Do...do you mean that?” His voice was kind of halting and soft in a way he hadn’t meant for it to be, but rather than tease him about it Tsukki just stopped to consider him, then shrugged and looked straight ahead.

“Yeah. You always do. That’s how you are.”

Yamaguchi considered this. It didn’t really feel like that’s how he was. It  _ certainly  _ didn’t feel like that’s how  _ other  _ people would think he was. He thought, guiltily, of the phone in his pocket, of the promise of coffee with Kageyama and the compromise of a shoe store, and he opened his mouth before he lost his nerve.

“Can I ask you something, Tsukki?”

“Mm?” Tsukki looked up from the map on his phone. “I guess so. Is it dire?”

“Huh? No, no. I just...you know how you used to play setter sometimes, for me? I-I mean in two on twos, back in middle school, or at our first year probationary match with Daichi-san.”

“I think calling that  _ setter  _ is a bit magnanimous,” Tsukki smiled dryly. “But I am aware of the practice of setting, yes.”

“How...how do you do it?”

Tsukki halted and scrutinized Yamaguchi’s face for a moment, searching and skeptical. Yamaguchi felt like the heat on his face might sear off all his freckles.

“You make a window with your fingertips and push out your wrists.”

“ _ No,  _ I mean like…” Yamaguchi gestured uselessly with awkward hands. “I mean for  _ me.  _ Setting for  _ me,  _ how do you—how do you make it work? What are you thinking about?”

Tsukishima’s wariness persisted for a moment, but then it seemed his expression softened just slightly as the hard edge of his brow relaxed. For an instant, Yamaguchi was certain he was going to demand to know where this question was coming from, to insist upon pursuing it to its source, but whether as an act of kindness or a lack of interest, he opted for honesty instead.

“I don’t know,” he stated simply.

“You...don’t know?” Disappointment, bitter and metallic, rose up in Yamaguchi’s throat.  _ What kind of an answer was that _ , he wanted to ask.  _ How can you not know? How can you not know anything? You always have. You always do. Why not this? Why not me? _

“I don’t know,” Tsukki repeated, but he must have caught the look Yamaguchi couldn’t manage to keep off his own face, because he laughed softly and continued with a tone that was almost apologetic. “Because you’re not the same person I played with in middle school anymore. Everything about the way you think and the way you approach the ball is different. Is that an acceptable answer?”

Yamaguchi ignored him, pushing through with another question. He had never felt so urgent in his life. So close to something he was afraid of knowing but couldn’t resist.

“Do you think you could do it if you had to? Right now?”

“Do  _ what?  _ Yamaguchi, what are you talking abou—“

“Set to me. Could you? If you had to?”

“Ukai-san was very clear about taking the weekend off—“

“That’s not what I’m asking,” Yamaguchi pressed, and grabbed Tsukishima’s wrist. He felt sweaty and intense and weird but persisted anyway. “If we were in a game right now, and the second ball came to you, and I was on the court, would you know how to give it to me?”

“God, Yamaguchi, I  _ don’t know,  _ okay?” he looked bothered for a second, then tugged his wrist away and straightened out the sleeve of his jacket, huffing slightly before continuing on as he walked. “There are variables. Where are our other wing spikers in this hypothetical scenario? Where is Kageyama? Who are we playing? What’s the score, and who’s on the front row? Who are their blockers following? It’s not a useful thought exercise if you don’t have the information you need.”

“Yeah. Sorry, Tsukki.” But Yamaguchi, with a sort of sad and certain stinging feeling, kind of felt like maybe he did. Maybe he knew everything he needed to know. Maybe he already had. Maybe Tsukki was right and he  _ was  _ too different from the person he had been in middle school, and maybe Tsukishima was too, both of them changing but never at the same times anymore, never in ways that fit together, but too much to pretend anymore that it was as easy as just assuming they would always continue to need each other. “Hey, Tsukki?”

“Is this still about volleyball?” Tsukishima sighed.

“Um...no. Not...not really.”

“Alright,” he relented. “Then what is it about?”

“It’s about the shoe store.” Yamaguchi took a deep breath and avoided meeting Tsukishima’s now-curious gaze with its one raised eyebrow and its glimmering shrewd intensity and its careful, calculated indifference. “I...actually already have plans today. Um...with Kageyama.”

“Oh.” Tsukishima blinked, then frowned. Yamaguchi’s heart skipped a beat. “Then why didn’t you just say so?”

Yamaguchi laughed awkwardly, shrugged, shoved his hands in his pockets, pulled them out and balled up his fists and ran his fingers through his hair and tried not to cry.

“Because I’m a mess, I guess? Because…” he paused and tried to determine if he was about to say any of the things he was thinking, and if so which one would come out first. “Because I thought your feelings would be hurt. Or because I wanted to believe they would. Because I feel like I’ve spent our entire, like,  _ deal _ just waiting to mean as much to you as you do to me, and just when I think I’ve accepted that it doesn’t work that way, just when I’m trying to figure out who I am on my own, you show up on my doorstep and—“

“Yamaguchi.”

Tsukki’s voice was level, measured. Yamaguchi almost couldn’t stand it, but he sighed and looked up. There was an odd expression on Tsukishima’s face, one that had never really belonged there. It was a knowing smile but sort of...sad, and wistful, almost. 

“I really just meant it rhetorically.” He gave an apologetic half-shrug and Yamaguchi felt his face flush with heat, but before he could stammer out a clumsy apology Tsukki continued. “But...thank you, for telling me.” He seemed to wrestle with himself for a second, or at least that’s how it looked to Yamaguchi, before carefully selecting his words again. “I think...you should go do whatever else you were planning on today.”

Even though it was the right answer, Yamaguchi still felt his heart crack a little bit under the weight of it.

“It’s as simple as that?” he managed. “You don’t even have to think twice about it? You don’t even want to hear the rest of what I have to say?”

“No, it’s not that. I just…” Tsukki considered the sky for a moment and then, with as much intention as Yamaguchi had ever seen him muster, made eye contact. “I don’t think you should make this about me. That’s not fair to you or...or to Kageyama. If you want to talk about it, then...then I’ll do my best to talk about it, just not right now. Deal?”

Yamaguchi smiled just a little, and the crack in his heart felt like it might shatter him into a million pieces. But there was something warm welling up inside it, too, something sort of fond and sort of sad and sort of peaceful, and beneath it all the humming excitement from this morning which he had buried as soon as he opened his door.

“Deal,” he said, and he threw his arms around Tsukki. The other boy gave a halfhearted protest, but only for a moment, and then begrudgingly looped his arms around Yamaguchi as well. Yamaguchi pulled back a moment later, red-faced and awkward, and smiled crookedly. “Err. I’m still walking in this direction though.”

“Well I’m not going to the other shoe store  _ now, _ ” Tsukishima huffed. “You dragged me all the way out here already.”

“Then...I guess we have to hang out a little longer?”

“Hm.”

“Sorry, Tsukki.”

Tsukki rolled his eyes with a grudging smile and popped one earbud in before nodding in the direction they were both headed. Yamaguchi fell into step beside him. Things  _ were  _ different. Things had changed.  _ They  _ had changed. In some ways, too much and too differently to really reconcile right now. But in some ways—and his heart leapt a little at this thought—maybe change wasn't such a bad thing after all. He pulled out his phone and quickly dashed off a text before shoving it back into his pocket to make the most of these little moments of sameness before he stepped into something scary and exciting and entirely new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading! i love tsukki! also i hate him! terrible boy!

**Author's Note:**

> new rule where anytime Yamaguchi shows up in Home to Roost and doesn’t immediately get everything he’s ever wanted I have to write a whole side fic devoted to making him happy
> 
> anyway I started this as a bit and then accidentally fell all in on yamayama. oops! I live here now.


End file.
